Day Labour Red Wall crumbled
Tories set to win swathe of seats in North – and ex-mining town is first to go blue
BORIS Johnson last night took a wrecking ball to Labour’s ‘Red Wall’ as the Tories snatched seats in the party’s heartlands.
Constituencies in the north of England, Midlands and Wales were set to be taken by the Conservatives – many for the first time.
In an incredible rewriting of the country’s electoral map, Labour haemorrhaged support in places seen as safe seats for decades.
As Brexit demolished old loyalties, the party was abandoned by its traditional working-class voters in areas that backed Leave in the referendum.
In one of the first shock results of the evening, the Tories took the former mining constituency of Blyth Valley in Northumberland, which had been held by Labour since 1950. The Conservatives overturned a majority of 7,915 to win the seat by 712 votes.
Labour was braced to lose dozens more seats including Bishop Auckland, which has never returned a Tory MP. Other expected casualties were Workington, Dudley North, Halifax, Wakefield, Bolton North East, Don Valley and Bridgend.
Bolsover, Rother Valley, Ashfield, Great Grimsby, Wrexham, Stokeon-Trent North, Don Valley, Ashfield and Leigh were also on course to tumble.
Sedgefield, the North East constituency represented by Tony Blair for almost a quarter of a century, was seen as in danger. It last elected a Tory MP in 1931.
Labour former minister Caroline Flint, who had been MP for Don Valley since 1997, said the party had ‘taken for granted’ its heartlands. She tweeted: ‘We’re going to hear the Corbynistas blaming it on Brexit and the Labour Uber Remainers blaming Corbyn.
‘Both are to blame for what looks like a terrible night for Labour. Both have taking for granted Labour’s heartlands. Sorry we give you a Labour Party you could trust.’ The tweet was later deleted. Lord Mann, who stepped down at the election as the Labour MP for Bassetlaw, said: ‘Every doorstep, every workplace for the last 18 months has rejected everything to do with Corbyn, Corbynism and the cult of Corbyn. They can’t say they weren’t warned. Repeatedly.’
The peer pointed the finger at Jeremy Corbyn’s Momentum group, which grew out of his first leadership campaign, for failing to win over voters in its heartlands.
He added: ‘The invisible army of Momentum proved to be a bunch of old men too scared to talk to voters and too arrogant to listen to anybody else. And they failed to turn up in seat after seat across the North. Armchair whingers.’
Boris Johnson repeatedly visited Labour-held seats that backed Brexit during the six-week campaign. Ahead of the election, many Labour MPs in Leave-voting areas had complained that their concerns were being overlooked by the shadow cabinet.
The party’s high command is dominated by those with London seats including Mr Corbyn, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott, Emily Thornberry and Sir Keir Starmer.
Labour sources last night blamed its ‘ever-fluid Brexit policy’ that ‘ended up being a compromise that pleased no one.
‘That includes Remainers, Leavers, the shadow cabinet, ordinary party members, trade unions and ultimately – we now know – the electorate,’ they added.
‘Picking a side did, of course, risk losing support – but failing to offer leadership did far more damage.’
Party figures argued the defeat, which is its fourth in a row, meant it needs ‘to be honest about the scale of what went wrong’.
One source said: ‘Of course the voters focused on Jeremy Corbyn as the symbol of all that was wrong with Labour, but it’s the sheer scale of the problem and the mistakes that should worry us.’